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The Item’s Miscellaneous (Misc.) column can be used in many ways: custom sorting, summarizing costs of only those found, and by marking your place by entering a bookmark (any character) and then using "Find". For instance, as you are doing your Bid there may be some Items you have questions about. Why not put a "?" in this column? Then Find and Show only items with a "?" by moving to the Misc. column and pressing the Help (Right Mouse Button) and selecting Find.
The Misc. Column can be entered in the Price Book Items, and can be customized in the Bid Item.
You may also want to give each Item a miscellaneous number/character for a phase, scope, subcontractor, location, room, etc. Then you may find and show only that group of items using the Find and show only command.
The Miscellaneous column can be used as a Bid-specific way to categorize Items, similar to Locations but different in each Bid. You may then report the Bid Items sorted by their Miscellaneous entries. In Release 6.5 and above, you can enter up to 30 characters in the Miscellaneous column. Also, with Release 6.5 and above, a pop-up list of Miscellaneous entries used in this Bid is available in the Misc. field.
If you think a particular item will use the same Misc. value in every bid, you can overwrite the Price Book Item by pressing Ctrl+D.
NOTE: If you are asked to "Replace" a bid item instead of "Adding a New One", the information in the existing Miscellaneous Column will be kept. Since the Miscellaneous Column information is usually used for finds and sorts, you would not want to recopy it every time you replace to a similar item. If it is a completely different item, then add it and delete the one you would have replaced.
How To Bid with Alternates Using this Miscellaneous Column
The term "Alternates" refers to alternative choices for such things as:
Labor
Alternate crews, different rates, various experience
Different finishes - Wood vs. Concrete, etc.
The following is an example of how to set up alternates. We have used alternate choices for materials (wood vs. concrete) and labor (your own vs. a subcontractor.)
Here's how to set up your bid for easy alternatives:
1. Prepare the bid with the most likely choices. In this example, wood and my labor.
2. Mark the wood items placing WOOD into the Misc. Column. At the same time, add your labor item for doing the work and mark them MY SIDING.
3. Add the items to the bid needed to install concrete instead of the wood. Mark them in the Misc. Column by typing CONC.
4. Add additional items for the subcontract work and mark those in the Misc. column "SubBid".
5. Print a Report Subtotaled by the Misc. column to see the different totals. Decide which you want and tag the other ones to delete.
Note: If you use a Data reference manual then we suggest you enter the page code - man-hours -rate per unit. For instance, enter "328-12.5-$20" for page 328, man-hours per unit of 12.5 and 20 dollars per unit.
See Also: Bid Item List,Bid Item Form
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